NJEA Plays Race Card on School Choicefrom the Trenton TimesMany advocates of school choice, both here in New Jersey and nationally, were startled and offended by NJEA President Edithe Fulton's recent advertisement "Vouchers are not a civil right." It's always interesting when the teacher's union, and other ostensible champions of liberal resolve and reform, resort to simple racial politics to get their point across. What was most disconcerting, however, was that at no point in Ms. Fulton's response was there any evidence, either real or imagined, about the effects of school choice. Now how did that happen? First of all, let's talk about the law, and not the self-interest of the teacher's union and its political cronies. Thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court decision, the constitutionality of "private" schools participating in a school choice program is no longer at issue-because parents make the choice. Whether or not the NJEA and its allies agree with this decision means little to choice advocates, and even less to the parents of children trapped in failing public schools (of which NJ has over 270). More importantly, the Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris decision makes one thing abundantly clear: offering equal educational opportunity to the children of low-income families is a goal that supercedes any antiquated ideology about public vs. private education. At the heart of the choice movement is the realization that not all children are educated effectively in the same environment-something wealthy parents have known for years. Choice advocates believe that parents should be able to pick the most appropriate, successful school for their children regardless of their income. If expanding educational options for children trapped in failing schools is a crime then we, as a movement, are guilty as charged. And as to what Ms. Fulton believes should be characterized as a civil right-I suspect that many minority parents find her (as the president of one of the country's largest, wealthiest, and most powerful teacher's unions) ill qualified to comment on either their civil liberties or their child's legal right to leave a failing public school. And since this State demands that each child receive a "thorough and efficient education," should it (or the teacher's union) also be able to force that child to attempt to get said education in a failing public school? Whether it's rhetoric or liberties, clearly Ms. Fulton and the NJEA have missed the point. In addition Ms. Fulton's mud-slinging, which attempts to characterize the school choice movement as a tool of the Republican right, is quickly defeated by liberal democratic teacher union supporters such as former Vice President Al Gore, who was quoted in a Boston Globe article as saying: "If I was the parent of a child who went to an inner-city school that was failing, I might be for vouchers, too." Most telling of all is what Ms. Fulton forgot to mention about school choice in Milwaukee over the past decade. Notably, the positive effect of private competition on the traditional public schools in that city including:
If the results shown here can be defined as exploitation, school choice advocates, and the parents who have benefited from this program, are clearly missing something. School choice has made, and continues to make, real improvement in the very same schools Ms. Fulton admits are under serviced ("Certainly every child has the right to attend a great public school, and we haven't fully delivered on that promise for many disadvantaged children."). And, as school choice activist Mikel Holt-a pivotal African American figure in the choice struggle in Milwaukee-states with regard to the conservative (read white) groups that ostensibly fund the school choice movement: "when you're drowning, and someone throws you a life preserver, you don't care who they are or what color that person is." Urban Democrats, and the teacher's unions that fund many of them, also fail to realize that there is tremendous support among minority parents for school choice (as high as 75% among African Americans, and 70% among Latinos in a recent Center for Education Reform poll) despite opposition from traditional political leadership. Which begs the question: who's really got the most to gain by keeping urban minorities undereducated and subjugated in failing public schools? A quality education is a civil right, and an educated populous is necessary to make this democracy function. If school choice and, for that matter, vouchers, are the mechanisms by which we can assure an excellent education for everyone, then why not use them? School choice, as proven in Milwaukee, is real reform, now, for children in failing public school systems. And since we already know it works, what are we waiting for? |